


Forever Young

by sithwitch13



Series: Across the Stars and Fields [6]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, X-Men - All Media Types, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Arya is in the Brotherhood, Bran is an X-man, Crossover, Gen, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-16
Updated: 2012-03-15
Packaged: 2017-11-02 00:24:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/362981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sithwitch13/pseuds/sithwitch13
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Conclusion/companion to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/221913">Across the Stars and Fields</a>. When the Xavier mansion is attacked, Arya returns to protect her family and Bran defends the people who took them in.</p><p>And then everyone deals with the consequences.</p><p>Spoilers for "A Song of Ice and Fire."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote the first draft months ago, in between working on my Yuletide assignment and traveling for the holidays. Consequently, it ended up very much inspired by some of the music I'd been using as inspiration, namely Audra Mae's cover of Bob Dylan's "Forever Young" from the Sons of Anarchy soundtrack. And now that I've tweaked it until I can't stand it any more... here it is, in all its depressing glory.
> 
> I have one last fic in this series that isn't so much a fic as it is a collection of short bits that didn't fit anywhere but that I liked that I'll be posting to not leave this on such a bleak note.
> 
> Thanks to everyone who has read, to Vladdie and [Lurkz](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Lurkz/pseuds/Lurkz) for looking this over and listening to me talk and worry over this series for months.

_I never yielded, you can’t make me say I did. -Bran, to Theon_

  
_December, 1975_   


Summer woke before Bran did, even though he was half blind and slightly deaf with age now. He slept beside Bran as he had since childhood, and the direwolf’s rumbling growl was what woke him. Bran’s eyes opened slowly, face smashed into his pillow and wondering what exactly was bothering his wolf so much, and out of habit he slipped into Summer’s mind, his senses doubling as he perceived his own surroundings as well as Summer’s.

Dimmed as his senses had become, Summer could still smell unfamiliar scents wafting under the door and hear the sound of muted footsteps, and small familiar sharp noises. Bran pulled back into his own head and sat up, feeling suddenly awake and scared. _Reavers,_ he thought for a nonsensical second, though that was ages and ages ago. The Ironborn weren’t here, were never here, and they didn’t use guns.

Summer whined and jumped off the bed to scratch at the door. _Hold,_ Bran thought, darting back into Summer, wanting to stay quiet for just a little while longer, until he could get in contact with someone else. Anyone else—he sent his mind out into the mansion and felt around for any awake minds, familiar or otherwise. The unfamiliar ones were easy enough to pick out, and he was shaken to realize how many of them there were, moving silently through the halls. _There are so many of them,_ he thought in dismay, and felt/saw one quietly opening a door, taking aim at a sleeping student, and fire.

The shock of it threw him back into himself, scared and furious. Summer had started growling again in the few seconds that it had taken Bran to reach out. There was no time to wait around and see if anyone else had noticed and decided what to do. He’d hope for the best and do what he could in the meantime.

The door was a problem. He couldn’t take the time to work his way to his chair and over to it, opening it up, and he lacked Julian’s ability to move things just by thinking about it. The next best thing presented itself: an invader slipped by at the mouth of his hallway, and Bran warged into him, beating the man’s consciousness down handily and opening his own door from the outside, then darting into Summer as the direwolf launched himself through. The shift in perception from victim to attacker barely gave him pause. The invader died with barely time to gurgle, knocked breathless before his throat was torn out, and Bran could taste the man’s blood in his mouth.

In Summer’s body, he ran down the first floor hallway, scratching at doors, unwilling to put up a howl just yet. There was no time to stay and make sure that those inside woke up; he ran down as fast as Summer’s somewhat arthritic legs could take him. Rickon’s room was upstairs, and Sansa was visiting for the winter holidays and rooming with Betsy, also upstairs. He was responsible for them, for keeping them safe.

He crouched down low and kept to carpeted areas. Summer’s dark fur was excellent camouflage, but the clicking of claws on wooden floors would give him away. Crossing the area to the stairs he found two more invaders, both men, stinking of sweat despite the December night. One was easy to dispatch, Bran-in-Summer leaping up to knock him to the floor, snapping his neck with a snap of strong jaws and pulling the body down with him. The other had been out in the open, too alert, and Bran avoided him entirely and tried not to think of the gun in his hands and the people—children, teammates, _friends_ —in the rooms nearby.

The staircase was a problem, and he stopped in the shadows, Summer’s instincts to hunt or hide warring with Bran’s attempt to reason a way up them without making himself an easy target.

_Bran?_ He felt the psychic voice in that strange tandem that he always did when he warged into another’s body. It felt familiar, and intent as he was it took him a moment to realize that it was Betsy.

Telepathy while warged was still difficult for him, so he left Summer with orders to stay hidden and in one place, and withdrew back into his own head. _Psylocke?_ he said, slipping into their code names automatically. _Is Sansa okay? Where’s the Professor? What’s going on? There’s soldiers everywhere, I can’t—_

_I think that he may have been taken out first,_ Betsy thought, her mental voice sounding strained. _I don’t know if they’re killing people or just tranquilizing them. I’m trying to organize as many people as I can while they think we’re still asleep._

_Can we attack them back?_

He could feel Betsy’s frustration. _No. Not here. There’s too many kids who could be hurt. We need to evacuate. I’ll try and get to Cerebro, see if I can use it to reach out. Blink and Rickon,_ she thought. _We’ve practiced evacuations before with Blink. Rickon can teleport without hurting anyone._

_He hasn’t done it in a long time,_ Bran thought doubtfully, balling his fists. _And you know what Blink is like when she’s nervous._

_They’re our only chance right now. If we can get them to the evacuation site and get in touch with the Brotherhood, that’s three teleporters. Do what you can in Summer to make sure that the soldiers stay away from the rooms here. I’ll wake up Blink, get her to teleport me to Cerebro, and tell her the plan._ She projected positivity at him, a mental “We can do this” that didn’t need words.

Bran’s mental nod was brisk. _Let’s get to it, then._

* * *

Arya—Stranger—awoke instantly when she heard the words “Xavier mansion.” Emma’s voice in the hallway. And she sounded… what? Actually worried. Emma never sounded worried when she mentioned the mansion.

_Be ready to leave in five minutes,_ Emma’s voice projected into her head, despite her usual reluctance to have anything to do with Stranger. _The Xavier mansion is under attack. We have work to do._

She was ready in three minutes, her weapons slung over her shoulders, belt not quite buckled and shoes untied but on her feet. Something was wrong at the mansion. With her family. She had to be there _now_.

Azazel waited outside, where only Magneto, Mystique, and Emma were with him. Magneto looked furious, but composed. Mystique was usually hard to read, but with the way she fidgeted, Stranger could tell that she was more than ready to go. Emma looked like Emma, and she raised an eyebrow at the state of Stranger. _Let her stare. I don’t need to have my hair brushed to save them._

“You have time to tie your shoes,” Emma said mildly. “It won’t help anyone if you trip and fall flat on your face.”

Stranger glared, considered not doing it just to spite her, but shifted her rifle and pistol collection enough to kneel down and tie the laces. Tight, just in case. Her stomach churned with worry. “We need to go,” she said, rising. “We could be too late.”

“We have a plan,” Magneto said, even though Stranger was positive she could hear his own frustration. “We need more than four of us for it.”

“Then Azazel can come back and get them. My family is there.” She unshouldered her rifle, the one she was best with, and held it protectively. The stock felt smooth and comforting. Not a sword, not nearly as viscerally satisfying, but it was something she needed right now. “Magneto—”

“We follow the plan,” he said through gritted teeth. Not the semi-mentor she’d known since she was eleven, then, but the leader of the Brotherhood. She shut up and fidgeted along with Mystique.

* * *

The first few groups evacuated without a problem, Bran thought. Clarice took the youngest kids, all roomed in her wing for this very purpose, told them that it was just a drill like they practiced, and they were gone. He watched it through the eyes of whoever had been sent to take out that hall, then marched him back down to Summer, who obediently and quietly broke the man’s neck after Bran jumped out. It was slow going, but the pile of bodies in the shadow at the foot of the stairs spoke to their efficiency. Summer’s arthritic legs were starting to ache, though, and Bran wondered how long they could keep doing it.

He smelled sulfur, then, faint but present, and knew that the evacuation plan was going well. Azazel had brought the first wave of the Brotherhood. For a moment, he felt giddy. Arya was supposed to be in that group. He wondered how she was doing these days.

Bran-in-Summer left the pile of bodies where they lay, blood staining the floors and limbs tangled together, and ran for the bunker. It didn’t matter if the invaders heard him now; let them. They would be in for a surprise if they tried to chase him down. One near the kitchen saw him, just for a moment, and followed him out of what Bran suspected was disbelief.

A kitchen knife detached itself from the wall and embedded itself in the man’s throat. Summer’s body stopped and smiled a wolfy, blood-stained grin.

Ten Brotherhood rounded the corner, Magneto at the lead. Bran recognized Arya even after almost four years of her self-imposed exile. Even loaded down with weapons and with her face contorted in fury, she still looked like Arya.

* * *

Stranger smiled in relief despite herself when she saw the direwolf. Bran, at least, was all right. “Good to see you,” she said to it, earning a baffled look from Bishop, who was new. “That’s my brother,” she said, confusing him further and taking perverse glee in it.

_You know what to do,_ Emma’s voice broke in. _Keep it quiet if you can, let me know if you can’t. I’ll be coordinating with one of theirs._

Stranger noted that Emma didn’t say _the Professor_ and wondered if it was too late for him. Magneto, who had his helmet off for the occasion of telepathic coordination, set his jaw but didn’t say anything. She thought she saw Mystique’s jaw clench. They split up, each taking a predetermined path through the mansion. Stranger’s was upstairs near Rickon’s room. She’d bullied Marrow into trading some months back.

Summer trailed along after her, waiting for her to clear the way with silenced pistols. Stranger didn’t say a word the entire time. It was easier that way.

Upstairs, Rickon nearly took her head off with a baseball bat. “Hello to you too,” she said.

“Arya?”

“Stranger,” she corrected. “Are you all right?”

“No,” Rickon said, still holding the bat tightly. “They’re coming for us again, aren’t they?” He glanced down at Summer.

“They’re coming for everyone here. Not just us,” Stranger said. She put down one of her pistols on his bed and grabbed his arm, turning him one way and the other.

“What are you doing?” Rickon asked.

“You’re fine,” she said. “No blood anywhere. Let’s go, you’ve got people to help.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Rickon said, wild-eyed.

Summer bared his teeth and growled, and Stranger narrowed her eyes. “When did you become a coward? The Rickon I know isn’t a coward.”

“I’m not a—”

“You are,” Stranger hissed, grabbing him by the collar of his shirt and yanking him over. He was taller than she was now—the Tullys had tended taller than the Starks, she remembered, and he favored the Tully side of the family. _When did he get so tall?_ “You can hide in here or you can get out there and use your damned power to get the people around here—the _children_ in here—away from the ones who are trying to hurt them. Kill them, for all I know. So what are you going to do, _coward_?” She picked up her pistol, gave him a look of disgust, and walked out the door. Summer followed.

“Arya, wait—”

“Stranger,” she said, whispering. She held a finger to her lips as she turned around, motioning for Rickon to shut up.

He looked torn, but he nodded. “I’ll do it,” he whispered.

She nodded. “Good. Get them ready. I’ve got to go, and most of them probably won’t know who I am anyway. Bran?”

Summer was already padding for the doors.

* * *

While Arya went off to do whatever it was that she did now—shooting people, from the look of her—Bran followed beside Rickon as they went door to door, waking up children, reassuring them that everything would be all right, and leading the ever-growing line to the next room. Rickon lied, cajoled, soothed, and threatened until they agreed to come out from under blankets, under beds, unblock their closets, and take their chances in the hallway while Bran-in-Summer kept watch. Summer’s senses only caught hints of what was going on beyond the hallway—the scents of the invaders was ever-present, but becoming muddled with the Brotherhood—particularly Azazel as he teleported in and out--and the more familiar smells of his teammates. Not for the first time Bran wished he had a more active role in plans than _keep watch_.

Clarice appeared at the end of their hallway with the distinctive noise that always accompanied her teleportation. She smiled, nervous and wavering but big to hide it from the younger children. “Are you ready?”

“Okay,” Rickon said, more to himself than the others, it sounded like. “Okay. It’s just like you practiced. Everyone hold hands, and—and we’re going to go to a safe place, okay?”

One of the younger children, maybe only nine or ten years old, started to protest but Bran growled and the boy’s jaw snapped shut.

Rickon nodded. “So hold hands—”

Bran heard a metal _click_ and Summer’s ears perked up. He reached out from Summer’s mind, brushing Rickon’s and letting his brother know what he’d heard before returning fully to the direwolf’s mind and turning, charging back down the hallway. There was no time for subtlety and shadows if they were already in a gun’s sights.

Behind him, he heard a noise, a that _blink_ , that he hoped was the sound of a large group of people vanishing. In front, he heard the hiss that he’d heard before from their guns, and felt a sudden sharp pain in Summer’s shoulder. It wasn’t a bullet—it was a syringe. They had been using tranquilizers after all, at least at first. Bran hadn’t stopped to check.

He could feel Summer’s almost immediate reaction to the drugs, but forced the direwolf on. The invader cursed and dropped the tranquilizer gun, pulled out a sidearm, and before Summer could make a stumbling leap at him, the man fired—

Bran woke back in his bed, in his room, in his own brain, screaming and clutching his chest. He’d felt Summer die. He’d _been_ Summer as he died, chest exploded from the bullet. He had to be silent. He couldn’t stop screaming, mucus and tears running down his face.

Summer had been his. Summer had been _him_.

_Bran? What’s wrong?_ He could hear Betsy in his head, but he shoved her out, pulling back in on himself and curling up on his side. He’d felt himself die. That had never happened before. He’d always jumped out before—

_Summer. Oh gods, Summer’s gone._

* * *

She’d moved down the hallway, sure that with Bran’s supervision Rickon would get them all out and everything would be okay. Stranger moved down the hallway, briefly shut her eyes. A mouse in the wall, briefly hers for the taking, let her know how many men were nearby and where. She let the mouse go, shot all four neatly and quietly the second she entered the room before they were even aware of her, and once more once they were down for good measure.

And then the screaming started. A man’s screams. Bran’s.

She tore down to where she remembered his room to be, skidding on blood puddles and rugs along the way. Marrow nearly tripped her, grabbing her arm as she passed. “Let go,” Stranger snarled.

“Stranger—”

“My brother—” she said, tugging hard and pulling them both over.

Marrow tightened harder and yanked right back, hard enough to hurt. “Listen,” she said, “Havok and Beast got one of their guys alive. Emma’s been in his head—they’ve got orders to blow the place up if things go south. They already have explosives in place, put them in before they even came inside.”

Stranger froze. “What?” she whispered.

“So the plan’s changed. We get the bombs out.”

“Can’t Magneto—”

“He’s busy,” Marrow said. “Tracking down the guys in charge. So it’s up to us. Got it?”

Stranger wavered, looking over her shoulder to the sound of the screams, still unceasing. “My brother—”

“He’ll be fine if we move fast.” Marrow let go of her arm and shoved her in a different direction. “Hurry. For all we know they’ve already given the signal."

Arya stumbled, then started running and sent out, as loud as she could in Emma’s stupid smug direction, _Let me know where the nearest one is._

* * *

Bran’s throat hurt. His chest hurt from where he’d been—where Summer had been—where they had _both_ been shot. But he had to stop screaming.

With some effort, he did, still curled up on his side and breathing hard. He had to be quiet because… because they were still here, in his home, and he was drawing attention to himself. He cursed. The men who killed Summer, that was it. The reavers. He might not have Summer any more, but he still had his mind, and everything else he’d trained himself to do over the past few years.

His mind was a sore, scattered thing right now, still shaken from feeling his—Summer’s—death. But he could do this. He reached out to see what he could find.

The man who’d shot him was still alive. Bran grabbed his mind, shoved the man down deep, and took over. He kept the pistol out and walked until he saw another man in the same uniform, and started shooting. When they shot back, he jumped into another. And another.

_Bran_? Betsy’s mental voice came again. _Bran, this isn’t right. You’re going to get hurt._

_Where’s Sansa?_ he asked instead of answering. When Betsy didn’t answer, he found a body nearby and walked over to Betsy’s room, testing the door. It was locked, and he could hear someone inside. “Sansa?” he called in the man’s voice.

She didn’t answer. He left her alone, taking the body to find more men to punish.

* * *

“I don’t know what to do with this,” Stranger said, covering her fear with fury.

_Just grab it and get rid of it._ Emma’s voice felt cold, disdainful, and Stranger cursed her in what remained of her Braavosi even though nobody would understand it. _We have three more to go, if what’s in the man’s head could be trusted._

Stranger looked at the tangle of wires around the explosives in despair. _It’s not like it is in the movies,_ Emma thought, exasperated. _Just detach it and give it to Bishop. He’ll take it from there._

She could do that. She got to work, prying the explosives loose with a combat knife she’d acquired years earlier. She pulled it away finally. “Got it,” she whispered. “Where’s Bishop?”

She’d handed it off to him and started back toward her last assigned explosive when she heard it. And felt it. The remaining explosives went off, and Stranger was knocked to the ground by the blast.

For a few moments she lay on the ground, dazed and in shock. She coughed, trying to draw air back into her lungs, and rolled painfully back to her feet, stumbling over to the site of the nearest explosion.

It didn’t matter that she had been assured that the explosives would be removed in order from most to least damage done just in case. It didn’t matter. The first floor wing that held Bran’s room was in flames.

Behind her, she heard Bishop yell her name. She ignored him. She plunged on through a smoldering wall, not yet completely on fire, and covered her face with her coat sleeve as she ran. The hall was a mess, blown inward from wherever the explosive had been attached, and pieces of the upstairs hall were still falling down. She dodged the burning pieces, not thinking about them and ignoring the debris, both mutant and building, until she got to Bran’s room.

His door had been blown open by the blast, and she could see his bed through the dust and smoke. A shape lay on it, presumably Bran—though it was hard to tell. The bed sagged and broke, a large chunk of brick wall half-collapsed over it.

Heedless of the debris still falling through and burning her through her coat, Arya plunged inside and grabbed Bran. He lay curled up on the bed, under the bricks as though they were a blanket, facing away from her. She tugged at him, and he groaned. “Arya?” he asked, his words slurred.

“It’s me,” she said, her voice harsh from the smoke. “Come on, we’re leaving.”

He turned toward her as much has he could underneath the rubble, and she could see that blood leaked from his mouth and nose. He grinned, ghastly in the harsh light of the fires and with blood on his teeth. “I never yielded.”

She gulped, suddenly freezing despite the fires and tried to move the bricks and other bits of building from on top of him. “I never said you did.”

“I never—” He coughed, a red bubble of spit and blood at his mouth, shuddered, and stopped moving. Arya kept at the pile on top of him, bloodying her fingers and breaking her fingernails. She didn’t say a word.


	2. Part 2

_May God bless and keep you always, may your wishes all come true_   
_May you always do for others, and let others do for you_   
_May you build a ladder to the stars and climb on every rung_   
_May you stay forever young_

“We could still use you here,” Magneto told her.

Arya—Stranger—checked her bag. “There’s more coming every week. I’m not irreplaceable.”

“Every loss is one keenly felt.” It was a cruel thing to say, and he knew it. She tightened her grip, but said nothing. “I won’t say you’re wrong,” he said after that quiet moment, acknowledging that he’d made his point, “but you can learn more. You’re young yet.”

“I’ve put it off too long. People can die any time. For all I know, most of them are dead already. Rickon can take care of himself and Sansa’s no threat to anyone.” She nodded, more to herself than to him. “It’s waited long enough.”

“And you’re certain that this is how you want to do it? Yourself against the world?”

“Isn’t that how you did it?” She looked up, challenging him to say otherwise.

He couldn’t, but that had been another life ago. “Until it was no longer a viable option, yes. What will you do when it’s no longer viable?” He floated a stray bullet over to himself, examining it. He had never once told her not to seek her revenge. He knew what she sought. He had only hoped that she would be more prepared. “There may not be a Charles Xavier there to offer you what you need.”

She exhaled noisily. “My father once told me that the lone wolf dies but the pack survives. It wasn’t true; I did just fine on my own while my family died around me. I’ll be just fine again. I’m good at adapting.” Her mouth twisted bitterly as she picked up her rifle. “Isn’t that what mutants do? Evolve?”

* * *

_May you grow up to be righteous, may you grow up to be true  
May you always know the truth, and see the lights surrounding you  
May you always be courageous, stand upright and be strong  
May you stay forever young_

“I’m leaving.”

Charles knew that he would hear those words, could feel them unsaid every time Rickon Stark walked past the fresh graves just in view of the mansion, but they were still hard to hear. “You’re sure?”

“I sent my sister off to die yesterday. I’m sure.”

“You don’t know that.”

Rickon, barely seventeen and awkward with it, looked at him with an old man’s eyes. “You’ve seen it in their heads. You know what it’s like there. Her against all that? Even with her power, even with that gun, I sent her back to die. It’s Jon all over again.”

“Is it your own ability you’re frightened of?” asked Charles. A reasonable fear; the teleportation that had brought himself and his brothers and sisters here across impossible distance had effectively signed his oldest brother’s death warrant, and Rickon had been the one to send him back to face that death ten years ago.

Rickon slunk in out of the doorway and sank into one of the chairs in front of Charles’ desk. “What do you think? I hate it. I hate being the one who caused it, and the one that they came to, and I hate being a target just because I’m _here_.” He looked up at Charles with hot, angry eyes, a shadow of the direwolf who had been his childhood companion until his death a few years prior. “I can’t be here right now. Not for a war.”

“Rickon, it’s not a—”

“ _Don’t tell me it’s not a fucking war_ ,” Rickon snapped, and Charles could feel the helpless rage bubbling out of him like steam. “I remember what it feels like when a war shows up in your home. This?” He waved his arm out toward the hall, where even the combined efforts of current and former students, allies, and Brotherhood hadn’t been able to erase the destruction of the previous month. “It’s a war. No matter how much you pretend otherwise, it’s a war.” He clenched his fists, looking out toward the door, to the wing where Bran had died, thoughts buzzing. “You pretend it’s not, Magneto provokes them, and once it gets really bad we’re all going to be ripped apart while you two fight over how to fight back.” He shook his head. “I can’t deal with that right now.”

Charles wanted to argue, to say _That’s not true at all, we’ve figured it all out, Erik and I, and we’ll be here to protect you all._ But deep down, he’d always known that their arrangement had been a patch at worst and a slight tempering at best, and the issues were still there, and if a student could see it then he’d been doing a worse job lying to himself than he’d thought.

Rickon kept talking. “Maybe I’ll be back, I don’t know. And if I am, I don’t know how things will be, or if I’ll agree more with you or him.” He smiled sadly. “Arya always said I’d be welcome over there, but here… this feels like home to me now, you know?”

“And it will continue to be for as long as you need it,” Charles said, voice steady despite the growing pit in his stomach. _I’ve lost another one._

“I’m going to stay with Sansa for a few days,” Rickon said, standing. “After that, who knows?”

“Rickon?” Charles called as the boy walked toward the door. “Whatever you decide, remember that there’s always hope.”

Rickon tapped the doorframe thoughtfully. “Winter is coming, Professor,” he said. “I’ll see you when it does.”

* * *

_May your hands always be busy, may your feet always be swift  
May you have a strong foundation when the winds of changes shift  
May your heart always be joyful, and may your song always be sung  
May you stay forever young_

Sansa wondered if either of her parents had ever felt like this before. Her father, after his own father, brother and sister were murdered and her mother after she had surely thought all her children save Robb lost. She stared out her bedroom window, watching people pass below her apartment, and wondered how it was that she couldn’t cry.

_Now Rickon and I are all that’s left,_ she thought. She tested it out, saying it again aloud to her empty bedroom: “We’re all that’s left.”

Saying it didn’t make it hurt any more or less, make it more or less real, and she still felt as if her heart had been scraped raw and empty.

In her dreams, since coming here, she’d imagined a happy life for herself and her brothers and sister. It was nebulous, since it seemed every day she learned some new way that it differed from Westeros, but the basics had been there: she would be able to marry a man she loved instead of worrying about politics and property and providing an heir, and her family, new and old, would be with her at whatever wedding she had. Arya and Bran had always been there in her mind, if idealized—Arya would certainly never choose to wear a beautiful dress like the one Sansa imagined. She’d have children, name them after her dead brother and parents and maybe even poor Jon Snow. Bran would have been a wonderful uncle. Arya might have found that she would have been a good aunt. But at the very least, even away from them and their mutant business, she pictured them around her, together.

She could hear Rickon moving in the living room and closed her eyes. She wanted to rage, to ask how he could have sent Arya back, how he could be here only to say goodbye and leave for gods knew where himself, with no idea if he’d return. She wasn’t as naive as she once was; she watched the news and read case files, and knew that things were getting worse for mutants. If he were discovered to be a mutant by the wrong people, the best she could hope for was a grave next to Bran’s. So many were simply reported missing these days and never heard from again.

Sansa rested her head on the windowsill, feeling it cold against her skin. It was all going to pieces again. She was not her father, to shoulder through it grimly uncomplaining, nor was she her mother, to hold what was left of her family together with quiet grace. She wasn’t even Arya, to defy everything and to seven hells with the consequences. She was only herself.

_No,_ she thought. _I'm Sansa Stark. I lived through hell and made a new life here. I went through school, I help people, I have a home of my own, and I do it all without mutant powers._

Finally, she sat on her bed and reached for the telephone. _But I don't have to be alone. Not anymore._ She dialed the familiar number, marveling only briefly at the wonder of it as she always did, and waited for a voice on the other end. “Xavier’s School for the Gifted,” said a woman’s voice.

“Is Betsy Braddock there? It’s Sansa. I need to talk.” Her voice finally cracked. “It’s important, please.”


End file.
